**league_of_legends_thread_62: show_running_gag_title("The Wins Of Winthur");

[Joran]

What happened to LMQ and Dignitas? I only knew of Curse signing Piglet because I follow Voyboy on Twitter and he posted it.

Imaqtpie has decided to resign to become a full-time streamer. ZionSpartan is currently a free agent. Kiwikid hasn't had his contract renewed.

For LMQ, NoName and ackerman are going back to China, Mor is currently in negotiations and Vasilli is exploring his options in NA (currently). XiaoWeiXiao is the only player back supposedly.

[GreenSerpent]

Well, we won that one but perhaps only due to their Lee vs my Lee back-and-forth at my red. They clearly forgot about Yi coming up from behind.

Still got matched up in a rather imbalanced way, what with the "vs a 5 man team again" bit of it... but I'm still in a bad mood. Perhaps it's time for a cup of tea and a quick round of something mindless.

It still doesn't soothe me knowing that my next match is going to have the balance of Edifis's house.

[sonofzeal]

Well, we won that one but perhaps only due to their Lee vs my Lee back-and-forth at my red. They clearly forgot about Yi coming up from behind.

Still got matched up in a rather imbalanced way, what with the "vs a 5 man team again" bit of it... but I'm still in a bad mood. Perhaps it's time for a cup of tea and a quick round of something mindless.

It still doesn't soothe me knowing that my next match is going to have the balance of Edifis's house.

Unless you're in Ranked... yeah, it's going to be sporatic. Sometimes it'll be stacked in your favour, sometimes against.

It helps me to think of it this way - rather than winning and losing (which is going to average out unless I'm good enough to carry my team, which I know I'm not), it's more just practice playing while ahead, and playing while behind. Both are important skills to have, and you have to play pretty differently. If the enemy ADC is becoming an unstoppable killing machine, maybe just see if you can splitpush a bit and take some towers behind their back, or trap someone under turret aggro if you've got a pull or a stun/snare. Teammate success or failure is going to balance out in the long run, even if it doesn't feel like it (or only be slightly tilted against, since the enemy team has five possible ringers and yours only has four unless you can be one). The only thing that changes is your performance, and what skills you're getting the opportunity to practice.

And, yeah, if it's getting to you, just clobber beginner bots or something, or play something else for a while.

[heronbpv]

this is a fairly comprehensive list, via paravine

edit: this is re: roster swaps

Big thanks for the link. Not perfect, but helps quite a lot!

[Artanis]

You get diamond 5s because they're grouped with one or more pre-30s themselves. A matchmaker trying to pair people with that wildly disparate level of skill is going to give up and die at some point because the odds of finding another team with just the same composition as yours is so low (not to mention that actual skill level of pre-30s can vary wildly due to smurfs).

I run into this every time I team up with mumblers. It usually ends in great frustration for all of us, me for getting stomped, and my teammates for losing due to their ADC being stomped

[Red Rubber Band]

Well, we won that one but perhaps only due to their Lee vs my Lee back-and-forth at my red. They clearly forgot about Yi coming up from behind.

Still got matched up in a rather imbalanced way, what with the "vs a 5 man team again" bit of it... but I'm still in a bad mood. Perhaps it's time for a cup of tea and a quick round of something mindless.

It still doesn't soothe me knowing that my next match is going to have the balance of Edifis's house.

If it makes you feel better I am Silver and get consistently ranked with Diamond players. Haven't checked lately but there was a period where I was constantly playing with/against Challengers.

It could be that I throw a TSM and play better in non-ranked. Or that I let my ranking slip by not playing games
But, regardless, that's a 3 division difference. Constantly.

[Olinser]

Imaqtpie has decided to resign to become a full-time streamer. ZionSpartan is currently a free agent. Kiwikid hasn't had his contract renewed.

For LMQ, NoName and ackerman are going back to China, Mor is currently in negotiations and Vasilli is exploring his options in NA (currently). XiaoWeiXiao is the only player back supposedly.

LMQ collapsing surprises me not at all, I called this a long time ago when the massive ownership drama hit them. Players just don't want to deal with BS like that.

The only real surprise for me is on the CLG roster - namely, that Dexter is out and Seraph appears to be staying. Seraph was pretty much universally agreed to be the weak link in CLG - wonder if they're going to try and negotiate with ZionSpartan?

[Anarion]

LMQ collapsing surprises me not at all, I called this a long time ago when the massive ownership drama hit them. Players just don't want to deal with BS like that.

The only real surprise for me is on the CLG roster - namely, that Dexter is out and Seraph appears to be staying. Seraph was pretty much universally agreed to be the weak link in CLG - wonder if they're going to try and negotiate with ZionSpartan?

They might move their players around, rather than just look for a jungle.

[ex cathedra]

rumour has it that CLG has already attempted to poach zion and scarra, but i'm fairly confident that CLG's "weak link" had very little to do with their individual ability as players. regardless, press releases indicate that Dexter chose to leave the organization, not that he was benched.

time has made it clear that CLG and poor teamwork are not easily separated

[Anarion]

time has made it clear that CLG and poor teamwork are not easily separated

But Doublelift said he'd be less selfish in that Worlds video series they made. And maybe even meant it for a few minutes

[thracian]

I feel like the AD carry changes to make heavy autoattacker ADCs stronger brought back CLG's bad habits. When CLG was running Sivir every game and Seraph/Link were playing aggressive laners, they had their period of greatest LCS success. I think falling back to their defend the Doublelift strategy is seriously hurting the team.

[abadguy]

I'm sad LMQ exploded. I think they really lifted NA S4, giving the other teams a real kick in the butt. I doubt Curse would have performed so excellently without the threat of LMQ around. I wish Curse would make the hard decision to remove IWD - I never thought Cop was a weak link in Curse at all and now with an even stronger ADC joining them, their jungle weakness might show up even more.

As for Dig, IAMQTPIE leaving is the right move. Get Vasili in there!
ZionSpartan showed much promise but he clearly showed he had a long way to go. Once the meta moved away from carry top laners/split pushers, he struggled very hard to keep up. Looking forward to how he'll fare in S5 though, if any team picks him up.

[Anarion]

I'm sad LMQ exploded. I think they really lifted NA S4, giving the other teams a real kick in the butt. I doubt Curse would have performed so excellently without the threat of LMQ around. I wish Curse would make the hard decision to remove IWD - I never thought Cop was a weak link in Curse at all and now with an even stronger ADC joining them, their jungle weakness might show up even more.

As for Dig, IAMQTPIE leaving is the right move. Get Vasili in there!
ZionSpartan showed much promise but he clearly showed he had a long way to go. Once the meta moved away from carry top laners/split pushers, he struggled very hard to keep up. Looking forward to how he'll fare in S5 though, if any team picks him up.

Releasing a jungler right now isn't the best plan. You've got TSM, CLG, and LMQ looking for new ones already. There's a dearth of talent and IWD is plenty good enough to get the team through a bunch of wins, especially if Piglet does represent a pretty serious upgrade over Cop.

Edit: Seriously though, if any more junglers leave NA, somebody's going to end up picking up saintvicious again.

[NineThePuma]

which one was saintviscous?

[Dusk Eclipse]

I think he is Curse Academy's jungler right now, and from what I remember he already has some LCS experincee under his belt.

[ex cathedra]

I'm sad LMQ exploded. I think they really lifted NA S4, giving the other teams a real kick in the butt. I doubt Curse would have performed so excellently without the threat of LMQ around. I wish Curse would make the hard decision to remove IWD - I never thought Cop was a weak link in Curse at all and now with an even stronger ADC joining them, their jungle weakness might show up even more.

As for Dig, IAMQTPIE leaving is the right move. Get Vasili in there!
ZionSpartan showed much promise but he clearly showed he had a long way to go. Once the meta moved away from carry top laners/split pushers, he struggled very hard to keep up. Looking forward to how he'll fare in S5 though, if any team picks him up.

are we living in the same world

the only summer split junglers who, on an individual level, seemed decisively better than IWD were meteos, helios, and noname. i think that IWD is one of the team's strengths. i also think that the team curse who showed up to the 2014 summer split playoffs had a clear weak link, but that weakness was the team's coaching and analysis staff rather than any individual player.

zion spartan was by far the most overrated top laner in the LCS

[abadguy]

are we living in the same world

the only summer split junglers who, on an individual level, seemed decisively better than IWD were meteos, helios, and noname. i think that IWD is one of the team's strengths. i also think that the team curse who showed up to the 2014 summer split playoffs had a clear weak link, but that weakness was the team's coaching and analysis staff rather than any individual player.

Amazing and Dexter were to me, better junglers than IWD. But agreed that if Curse continued playing their hearts out like they did during playoffs, they have a really good opportunity to go non-4th in S5. LMQ is gone, Team8 looks to be S5's cOL, 3rd behind TSM seems highly probable.

But yeah, they need a coach to pull them together when they start to tilt.

zion spartan was by far the most overrated top laner in the LCS

This sentence I can definitely agree.

[Winthur]

The only real surprise for me is on the CLG roster - namely, that Dexter is out and Seraph appears to be staying. Seraph was pretty much universally agreed to be the weak link in CLG - wonder if they're going to try and negotiate with ZionSpartan?

Link was CLG's bigger problem because he turned into jiji, barely winning lanes and not putting in any effort. Seraph's issues were mostly related to CLG sacrificing their top lane every game. Seraph has (had?) the motivation to play, problem is that while Hotshot is good at spotting individual talents his macromanagement of the team suffers (expensive moves to Korea etc.) and he changes his opinion too often.

Amazing and Dexter were to me, better junglers than IWD.

Wouldn't call them decisively better, more like on par with one another.

I think he is Curse Academy's jungler right now, and from what I remember he already has some LCS experincee under his belt.

The best NA jungler (along with TheOddOne) back in the days that had a fall from grace but ultimately we want him more and he's our biggest bro. Unfortunately, despite having a pretty ripped physique, he sounds like Mickey Mouse.

I feel like the AD carry changes to make heavy autoattacker ADCs stronger brought back CLG's bad habits. When CLG was running Sivir every game and Seraph/Link were playing aggressive laners, they had their period of greatest LCS success. I think falling back to their defend the Doublelift strategy is seriously hurting the team.

It's not that he has to play utility picks to stay relevant, Doublelift just has to make up for the fact that Sneaky and WildTurtle easily match up his vaunted skill level while remaining better, more solid team players.

Hell even Cop was more of a contribution to Curse than Liftlift to CLG in his final days just because he didn't grumble when serving under billion different supports and just playing solidly, not making great plays but making sure he keeps his distance and just fires away; the kinda playstyle attributed to guys like Genja.

[thracian]

I think Doublelift is more than capable of playing the more "carry" style of ADCs. The advantage of forcing Doublelift onto a utility pick is that the team can't fall back on bad habits as easily.

[Winthur]

I think Doublelift is more than capable of playing the more "carry" style of ADCs. The advantage of forcing Doublelift onto a utility pick is that the team can't fall back on bad habits as easily.

Problem with those utility picks is that they lack safety in lane and in teamfights due to lack of dashes (Kog'maw makes up for it with range and damage), perhaps even requiring a team built around them. Varus, Ashe and Sivir aren't exactly favored in the scene nowadays. Especially Sivir, being so low-range and the BT changes not favoring her too much.

[Forum Explorer]

I'm sad to see Zion leave DIG. Yeah he wasn't as good as he used to be in the new meta, and he wasn't as good as he reputation said he was, but he was still capable of carrying games when he got his comfortable splitpush going, and was decent otherwise.

More importantly, I subscribe to C9's philosophy that a stable team is a better team. By minimizing roster changes you have more time to learn how to work with your team mates and thus your team coordination grows.

Basically it's better to stick with a decent old teammate then take a gamble on a potentially better new teammate.

[abadguy]

More importantly, I subscribe to C9's philosophy that a stable team is a better team. By minimizing roster changes you have more time to learn how to work with your team mates and thus your team coordination grows.

Basically it's better to stick with a decent old teammate then take a gamble on a potentially better new teammate.

Unfortunately that model can't be subscribed to unless the team is constantly winning. If the team is not consistently placing first each split, the business minds take over and demand changes. Its pretty much the same for most competitive sports with lucrative media deals, the English Premiere League being the prime example (that's the English soccer football league for the sake of the 'muricans)

[Forum Explorer]

Unfortunately that model can't be subscribed to unless the team is constantly winning. If the team is not consistently placing first each split, the business minds take over and demand changes. Its pretty much the same for most competitive sports with lucrative media deals, the English Premiere League being the prime example (that's the English soccer football league for the sake of the 'muricans)

I was hoping their performance over CLG (who they pretty much smashed IMO) would've justified minimizing changes.

[Dusk Eclipse]

C9 were pretty consistent throughout both splits at least until Hai's lung collapsed, after that they did kinda slumped for a bit, but managed to recover by the playoffs; I still don't know why the lost to TSM at the finals, they should have won.

Also I'm beggining to hate Ranked, just finished a Ranked game with Rango where I went 17/8/11 and we still managed to lose oh and what is worse is that I have to win my next game or I'll be demoted to Bronze III.

[ex cathedra]

I was hoping their performance over CLG (who they pretty much smashed IMO) would've justified minimizing changes.

I've seen solo queue teams with more coordination than playoff clg

[Godskook]

Pre-30 normal matchmaking is a right mess. However, keep in mind that outside of complete newbie status, win count is an abysmal way to judge skill level.

Back when I could still notice the variance by win-count, it seemed to diverge rapidly at about 150-200 wins.

My point is as such though, being stomped is not going to teach me anything. I won't be focusing on what the Plat player does because they, 9/10 times, play an easily snowballed champion who gets ahead really easily. I'll be too busy focusing on "okay, Yi's fed, I should build armour and ward more" or whatnot, rather than focusing on Yi's positioning.

Ok. How did Yi get around your ward? Why didn't building armor 'work'? What other tools did you have or not have available that would've wrecked him? Did your team have enough CC? Did you stay grouped when trying to make plays? Did you blue pill at low hp when Yi was -possibly- nearby? Did you hold your spells for after he used Q? Did you, as the squishy, wait to join the fight till Yi blew his Q on a tank?

Being stomped means that someone is exploiting a larger number of your flaws than usual. Hence, its probably the most fertile grounds in which to learn, as the odds that you find -something- to learn in that game are much higher than your average. I will admit its a rather tragically ironic thing, though, as its also the least fun way to learn.

How on earth am I supposed to improve if I get stomped into the ground each game by people vastly higher level than me? I don't have time to think "what's Yi's positioning like" because I'm thinking "woah, dodge that Q, now return fire, wait no that E is coming out, has dragon been taken..."

1.By trying to friend these massively higher skill level players. As someone whose been on the other end of that exchange a lot, I have quite a few friends on my list who I originally met by stomping them in a match of Plat v. pre-30. I also then spent *HOURS* of time teaching these players to play at a much higher level than where they were at. One of them is notably in Gold at the moment.

2.I've said for -years- that the fastest way to train a new player is to have him play with the most experienced players he can find as team-mates, which naturally puts him against opponents that are 'out of his element'. The players I've known who avoided queueing with high-skill players are still, to this day, not comfortable doing so, while newer players have completely outpaced them.

Unless you have the skill set to analyze your opponent's play, getting stomped by a vastly superior opponent just leaves you holding your head in your hands. Most pre-30s (hell, a great deal of level 30s I know) do not have the skill set to analyze.

I....really don't think this is true.

On top of that, its worth noting that the iteration cycle of self-analysis is longer than for things that are taught. This leads to situations where a newer player always seems like they're too 'slow' at learning things, when really, you're just capable of adding to their wealth of knowledge far faster than they are(which in turn, probably did not come to you strictly through self-analysis either).

[Ionbound]

Can I take the happy medium? It's only beneficial to play with and against people higher level/skill/league than you when they can help you. This is absolutely something I've experienced. When I'm playing with mumblers, sometimes my Internet decides to have a heart attack when there are more than two people in a room with me, and I have to leave to not have upwards of 2k ping. And in each and every one of those games, when I don't have someone shot-calling and giving me tips, I fail utterly against the higher-skill opponents I'm up against. Likewise, when I can hear people giving advice and helping on plays, I do play a lot better (I still get destroyed, but eh).

Mostly, the benefit from playing with/against higher leaguers is that they can explain things that you may not have realized, and help your play. This instantly evaporates when you're in solo, and the matchmaker borks out and punts you as the lone pre-30 against another team that has a lone pre-30, who is most likely in a chat, while you are not.

[Nadevoc]

I used to play against people that absolutely crushed me in lane on about a weekly basis due to a group I was in; disparity was something along the lines of low silver against mid diamond. I wasn't in voice comms with anyone and no one was giving me analysis; it was just me getting crushed in lane.

I improved more and improved faster than any other period I've played League.

No, you DON'T need people telling you what to do. Just watch your lane opponent. See what they're doing differently that lets them win so hard - where are they positioning, when do they go in, when do they let a CS go.

You can do analysis yourself; you don't need it spoonfed to you.

[zabbarot]

I used to play against people that absolutely crushed me in lane on about a weekly basis due to a group I was in; disparity was something along the lines of low silver against mid diamond. I wasn't in voice comms with anyone and no one was giving me analysis; it was just me getting crushed in lane.

I improved more and improved faster than any other period I've played League.

No, you DON'T need people telling you what to do. Just watch your lane opponent. See what they're doing differently that lets them win so hard - where are they positioning, when do they go in, when do they let a CS go.

You can do analysis yourself; you don't need it spoonfed to you.

My friends refer to this as trial by fire. This is how most of them learned to play. Being dragged into a game they'd never played on a team full of people who were at least silver ranked. Not that high, but intimidating for learning to play.

[Artanis]

Can I take the happy medium? It's only beneficial to play with and against people higher level/skill/league than you when they can help you. This is absolutely something I've experienced. When I'm playing with mumblers, sometimes my Internet decides to have a heart attack when there are more than two people in a room with me, and I have to leave to not have upwards of 2k ping. And in each and every one of those games, when I don't have someone shot-calling and giving me tips, I fail utterly against the higher-skill opponents I'm up against. Likewise, when I can hear people giving advice and helping on plays, I do play a lot better (I still get destroyed, but eh).

Mostly, the benefit from playing with/against higher leaguers is that they can explain things that you may not have realized, and help your play. This instantly evaporates when you're in solo, and the matchmaker borks out and punts you as the lone pre-30 against another team that has a lone pre-30, who is most likely in a chat, while you are not.

This. Absolutely this. Losing can help you learn, but only if you're able to figure out what you can do better. If you're still able to put up a fight, you can do that, but a stick of butter isn't going to learn a hell of a lot when it goes up against a +5 Knife of Hotness.